Singapore

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We had the fortune of staying at Hinda's cousin's place in Singapore which saved us a bit of money as it is significantly more expensive in SIngapore compared to other SE Asian cities. The difference in countires was immediate upon crossing the border everyone drove new cars and it was so clean and minus those interesting smells. It is exactly like a western capital city just more compact and with trees lining the main streets it is quite a nice city and definatly one i would recommend for a stopover on a long haul flight if you have to stop in a SE Asian capital. I think the girls would especially love it as there is a ridiculous amount of shopping to be had with the centre being Orchard Road which as you can see in the picutre is lined with shopping malls it is like chapel street on steroids only without the attitude and guys on steroids. Luckily for me we have no room in our packs for shopping so i manage to escape with only a few hours browing.

On our last day we went to the Singapore Turf Club to watch some horse racing the facilites were outstanding even better than flemington i would say and it was only $6 to sit behind the glass in the grandstand with air-con. It took us a couple of races to work out the odds but we finally realised tyhe minimum bet was $5 so thats what the odds were based on (we were wondering why the fav ion the first two races was paying $15 i.e 15/5 =$3)

It was a great day out with a few winners picked including the feature race and although it wasnt quite the same as the Melbourne Spring Carnival it was fairly good standard none the less.

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Photos

Orchard Road
shops for as far as the eye could see every man's nightmare when travelling with a shopaholic

cbd
there were less tall buildings than i expected

lanterns
there was a lanterns festival on while we where there